GDR2 shows up on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 update history page

The past few days have seen a flurry of news hit our front page. The Lumia 925 was announced for T-Mobile and the Nokia Lumia 1020 was officially revealed to the citizens of earth. It’s a glorious device with 41 million pixels at your disposal. So let’s switch it up and give you guys some news about all your “old” devices, the ones you’re currently holding or in your pocket. GDR2 could be coming sooner than you think.

GDR2 is the next operating system update we’re looking forward to in the Windows Phone world. Followed by GDR3 and Blue. Microsoft has posted some new info on their Windows Phone 8 update history page, which happens to detail some history that hasn’t really happened for anyone yet. Windows Phone update 8.0.10327.77 (or 8.0.10328.78 depending on your phone model and mobile operator) will include the following:

Xbox Music

It's now easier to select, download, and pin music. Plus, music fans will see more accurate metadata (such as song and album information) and many other performance improvements.

FM radio

Listen to FM radio right from the Music+Videos hub. (Not available for all phones.)

Data Sense

Stay on top of your phone's data usage with Data Sense. You can set a limit based on your data plan, or just keep track of which apps use the most data. (Not all mobile operators offer Data Sense.)

Skype

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) apps like Lync and Skype now feature improved stability and performance.

Internet Explorer

Camera

Set your favorite Lens so it opens automatically when you press the camera button. (Not available for all phones.)

Other improvements

Includes many other improvements to Windows Phone.

These changes while small, should help alleviate and improve the experience on Windows Phone. Also, the fact that they’re listed on the Windows Phone 8 update history page reveals they might be coming sooner than we think.

After that i'm pretty sure the went (Elop calling De la Vega) into a meeting. Since both were there. Mr. Elop is a great professional .He handle the question like a champion ,no doubt on that.But that is the true ;AT&T is not committed the way they should

At the end of the press event during questions a bad as female reporter from Forbes ripped a hole in at&t's ass.. She threw everyone off guard by calling out the actions of att store reps.. She said that att has done a horrible job with WP because they have not forced their store reps to push the devices, rather they turn customers away to iDroid devices.. When she said it the other reporters started clapping, which was IMO one of the best moments in WP history.. Elop, thrown off, had to quickly go into damage control mode, and his rebuttal was very good. Nevertheless, the message was clear and Ralph ran off stage crying like a upset 16 year old girl running out a auditorium at a high school dance.. So, now we feel that those biased store reps are finally going to get theirs.. Their ass is grass now.. Lol❕❗❕❗❗.. I ♥ it❕

Full Conference with Q&Ahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9LuVmJKY8c
I too was taken aback how calmly Elop took that hit, Ralph must have been thanking his lucky stars that he was not on stage during the Q & A lol.

In the Q&A - Joan Lappin - Forbes.com threw AT&T under the bus. "AT&T a dreadful partner" at 1:03:20 in the youtube video. Elop handles it beautifully, AT&T owes him a dinner at Mendy's.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9LuVmJKY8c

She was so dead on with the question and her description of AT&T as a partner. In the stores I went to, I knew more about the L920 than the salespeople - just from doing research online. They had no idea how to answer even the simplest questions that I had - regarding some of the basic operations of the device. It really was pathetic, because the answer to one of those questions would be the deciding factor in my purchase decision. I finally went to a store in another city and a salesperson there answered the question for me. I purchased the phone, and I'm really glad I did. I really love the device. It's not perfect but I'm happier with it than any other smartphone I've ever owned - after 6 months. Usually by this point, I'm beginning to get some resentments built up about some quirky bug or another.

Very true. But its also important to note that his answers are actial relavent to the question and contain information. A lot of politicians know how to answer questions smoothly with no pauses, but they are usually complete BS off topic sound bytes.

The fact that they're addressing two of my biggest gripes with the os is great. Better html5 in ie and any improvement to Xbox music are every welcome additions and will make me love my 920 even more :)

YES @GoodThings2Life!!! That effin messages drives me to drink!! The ONLY solution I can get to work around it is to delete the song and then redownload it FROM the phone. Sometimes the phone will say "In Collection" and then only offer to let me buy a song that I've already bought or have access to with my Pass account. In that case, I have to put the song on my phone from the computer and then delete it and then redownload it FROM the phone. HUGE pain in the butt.

Yeah indeed. And it is weird because push on WP8 works really great, but not on Skype and other certain apps (like Whatsapp, for god sake). But why would an software update improve push for Skype (which is a downloadable app) specially? We will see...

As I understand, push notifications are pushed to the device by windows and not the app i.e. the app lets the notification centre know and that pushes it to the phone in question. Maybe the notification centre is not able to push updates from 3rd party apps. Or maybe microsoft has not provided 3rd party apps an efficient way to let the notification centre know when a push is needed

Its not from Microsoft, they just own it as basically the Skype team move under Microsoft management/ownership. Do you or anyone really think the would neglect the millions of subscribers on Android/Apple to focus solely on new WP users? Its a fine juggling act to maintain existing user base and also gain new users at the same time. I'll be patient

Push notifications "work" horrible on my WP8... particularly Facebook, but also Skype, Voxer and instance (they've never worked, could be the app).
In fact, the only notifications I get steadily are from Words with Friends. LOL (that's a sad lol, btw)

That's not true. I think it is app related because Facebook, whatsapp and instance indeed have terrible push services, but that is something the developers of the app have to fix. All other apps, like wpcentral, regenmeter (rain checker, roughly translated) and even swapchat are working well... But maybe it is not very simple for developers to make it stable and it could be the fault of the OS, so I really hope they're going to fix it :P

Issue is not the Apps, it is something within the Operating System, people on Android, IOS, BB and symbian are able to get notifications from the likes of WhatsApp, Skype etc without issues. Push Notifications of WP7 and WP8 have been misbehaving for a while and there is just too many people complaining about them. Microosoft needs to send us a patch to correct the Push settings

But you said it yourself, it is there since wp7. So it isn't going to be fixed soon. And the fact it is Microsoft who has to fix this, and microsoft isn't that quick with fixing things (other storage bug). And wp8 (in comparison to wp7) is really unstable. I hope they fix all these things in GDR3!

Exactly, Visual Voicemail app on Verizon's WP8 devices stinks, Why can't they use the built in feature in Wp8 like they should ? Do I really need ANOTHER tile for something that should be built into the current tiles ?

I've asked a few times about it and kind of just told "that is the way it is" with no detail...

Verizon's WP side sucks with WP8, No group messaging and the crappy Visual voicemail app.. Wish they would work with Microsoft and FIX the problems once and for all..

Data Sense was announced as a key feature of WP8. Not a Nokia feature, not a carrier feature, not a country feature. A OS feature. Therefore there's absolutely no reason to not have it on board since day 1

You do realize that, without proper support from the carrier (so the app knows about compression and shared data plans), the app cant provide accurate data usage stats.

Creating the potential for misinformation is far, FAR worse than no information at all. What Microsoft is doing makes sense: customers on carriers that provide the required data get DataSense, carriers who's carriers don't provide the required data aren't given a potentially misleading app.

Not trying to rain on your parade, but unfortunately the carriers have s lot of influence on this matter and it does suck, but unless you and many others are willing to leave that carrier, you'll just have to wait

I think the Data Sense problem is the Carrier's choice to no support it. Cause here in Paraguay, it Works on the Lumia 920 and other model outs of the box, eventhough these are the first WP ever sold in here. I don't see them having a special infrastructure actually to make it work, so blame AT&t maybe for not letting you use it.

I'm not on AT&T. I'm not even American. I'm in Europe. Here we buy our phones off-contract. I bought mine at normal sale price in January. It does NOT have Data Sense. And there is absolutely NO reason whatsoever for it. Microsoft simply didn't released it to everyone and now uses the carriers and the compressions etc as excuse.
Really? Data Sense doesn't do much more than Nokia Counters on WP7 does. Yet they can provice a Data sensor in WP7 and can't in WP8? Really?

Do you have album art? Are all the songs from one artist under that artist's name? Does your music just play when you click play, without protesting that the file type is unsupported, even though it is supported and it will work after clicking play again? Are you able to upload podcasts from the desktop sync app AND download podcasts OTA from the music store on the same phone? Do your podcasts synced from your desktop have album art?

If so, lots of the Xbox Music bugs have been fixed. If not, that sucks. They need to fix it!

I really don't know either, no one knows actually. I really thought they would say something about it, but the only thing that was said by microsoft is the tweet from Joey Belfiore with the message that there will be a fix coming. But that was months ago...

This! That's so annoying 'cause I only have 300Mb memory left.. The others storage takes over 3Gb!! That everything goes to "media" but I have no idea what "media" it is since I have only 0,5Gb music, videos and pics. Even the memory sd card doesn't work so this phone is going to take some repair

ahh i hate that.. I've been getting spam from pizza hut, maida grill, insurance, ppi claims.. even automated phone calls! wth i've been ex-directory ever since i got my O2 contract. That was the first thing i asked for and in the past 2 months there has been a huge spike.. its like harrassment.. random messages at 3 am at night. Last one was 3 nights ago bloody annoying.

That's good.. As it would be useful for u, imo. How about sms..? A version of L920 has this too, but it's carrier locked. Meaning u have to use it w/ some chinese cellular provider for it to work. But Microsoft is the key here, it should come from them, so all OEMs would have access to such features. Huawei, HTC, Nokia, Samsung etc. If they have so many else to do, why not just open it up for devs and let them do their thing, right.? Back in my Android days I have Kaspersky Mobile Security for such features needed.

If you're so poor and angry, why don't you switch providers? Like maybe to T-Mobile perhaps? Unlimited data? $30/mo? Cheaper? No? Stop the immaturity, please. Anger lowers your IQ anyway, so it doesn't help to be angry all the time when trying to logic out situations.

Other Storage 4GB
System 2GB
Essential apps (Whatsapp etc) installed
ZERO Games
Media all in SD.

Have less than 800MB left and can't even buy one major game.
Need to be careful with updates. etc etc.

My gf's 820 is a dumbphone now. That's just me btw. Some people are reporting Other Storage racking up at 8-10GB.

But again my 920 hardly noticed this problem after I turned off Autoupload to Skydrive. The other storage dramatically slowed down. But it still has 4-5GB in it and I can't get rid of it no matter what.

I'm sorry... not being ale to capture the moment of my nephew kissing a giraffe at the zoo was really not frustrating at all. My wife knowing how to hard reset her phone when Other Storage takes up 10+ GB s just ok. Not being able to download the Great Gatsby album before our trip to New York was a moment of joy. Having to go through and delete apps even when there are not enough to bring up the 'quick letter menu' (don't know the official name) was so mich more fun than playing Contre Jour so i deleted it. Not being able to use the functions my wife got the phone for at $500+ is really ok. I am over reacting. Sorry guys!